Stowaway
by NPYD
Summary: [Castle AU. Castle Ficathon 2015 entry.] Captain Rick Castle knew from the moment he set eyes on her that she was trouble. Stowaways brought nothing else. But she had a story, and despite his better judgement, he knew he had to be a part of it.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey!"

Rick Castle jumped; his skin instantly electrified and his heart squeezing in his chest. His boot snagged underneath him as he forgot his feet and toppled down, hissing as the palms of his hands, the points of his hips, and the knobby caps of his knees scraped the metal grate beneath him.

"Shit," he swore under his breath. Standing, he pressed a couple fingers roughly to his hip. Well, at least nothing seemed too damaged. But he'd feel it in the morning, of that he was certain. Hitting the deck wasn't as easy as it was in his fighting days.

"Sorry, Dad! I didn't mean to scare you," the grease-streaked face of his daughter peered up from below, her usually dancing wide blue eyes shuttered by concern, "but we've got a problem."

Fourteen years old and three-quarters of the maturity in their family of two, Alexis didn't make such statements lightly. The damper on her typically chipper demeanor couldn't mean anything good and the multitude of possibilities from mundane to catastrophic whizzed through his mind.

Were they being pursued? Had their fuel been siphoned off by thieves again? They were days from the next relatively safe territory on which they'd be able to refuel. Someone sick on board? Mechanical failure? Everything vibrated healthily beneath his feet and the low whirr of the ship's systems sounded fine as they provided the constant backdrop to daily life aboard, but then, he wasn't half as in tune with the ship's hearts and guts as Alexis was.

"What is it?" He exclaimed with unease, not waiting for an answer to leap over the rail, dangling for a moment before bracing himself for the impact and landing with a minimal creak in his knees. The redheaded mechanical wonder-girl took stride and he fell in beside her.

"Well, I was doing a systems check, and our takeoff weight isn't what it should be."

"Damn scavengers drained us," he growled, turning his mind again to how in the hell they were going to get fuel out here in no man's land. Literal No Man's Land, as his ace pilot had remarked upon earlier while studying the map, to the chorus of groans from the rest of the crew.

"No, not that," Alexis dismissed, squirming with discomfort, "you know those crates we picked up there though?"

Rick nodded his confirmation, sneering at the thought. "Luxury goods, headed for Dyton," he recalled, "what about them?"

"We're significantly over-weight for that. Everything else is accounted for, so it's got to be whatever's in those crates. There's no way there's clothing, electronics, and cosmetics in there."

Having towed the ill-gotten shipment into the cargo bay by crane, it was true that Captain Castle hadn't had a chance to personally inspect the three massive crates in the hours since they'd received them. All he knew was that he was getting paid handsomely for their contents at their next stop. Assuming that the largely no-good inhabitants of the forsaken place didn't decide to shoot it out with his crew again for them rather than pay, that is. It was a distinct possibility. Without the watch of the law and with no tradition of decency in their heritage, the denizens of Dyton possessed a crude form of intelligence only as far as it came to the ways of thievery, extortion, and backstabbing. He'd not put it past them to commission a job under false pretenses. The so-called luxury goods, he reasoned, were most likely weapons, if unaccounted-for weight was Alexis' tipoff.

"Hmm," he hummed, allowing himself to be escorted down to the cargo bay, "doubt it's anything immediately dangerous, given there's no benefit in blowing us up on the way there," he reasons, shooting his daughter an apologetic look for his bluntness when she stiffened beside him.

"But what if it's something we could _really_ get in trouble for? What if there are trackers in there?"

She had a point. Paranoia wasn't something he'd ever held her to his chest as a small child and wished for her, but it was a necessary part of ensuring their continued freedom. He'd taught her reluctantly, but well, to suspect everything. There very well could be something to track them in there, yes, but the weight was still the main question.

"Alright, Pumpkin," a ghost of a wan half-smile quirked at his lips on seeing his daughter's nose wrinkle at the nickname. He pulled her into a one-armed hug, settling slightly at her warm presence even as her hands impatiently batted him away, "I'll go check it out."

"Be careful, Dad," Alexis bid him goodbye, jogging off presumably back toward the engine room that was her domain.

"I will."

Watching her go, the Captain gave a sharp whistle. "Shadow!"

 _Shadow_ – he huffed to no one in particular. _How pathetic was that?_ The scuttle of feet drew closer and louder, and he braced himself as a black mass of fur careened down the stairwell and onto his platform, managing to unbalance him even so as it jumped him, paws placed directly on his broad chest.

"Hey, boy," he murmured, giving the large dog an affectionate scratch behind the ears, more as a force of habit than anything else, "let's go see what kind of trouble we've got."

Shadow blinked his liquid brown eyes, sentient. His large triangular ears swiveled and his head bowed, nose dragging along the ground as if he understood that he was on alert mode. Venturing eagerly ahead, the canine zeroed in on something that interested him. He padded toward the middle crate, sniffing it madly and pacing in front of it.

Bulky and nondescript as they come, Castle noted that the crates looked rather shabby. He gave one a light kick and a board fell off. Definitely not quality material, he noted, berating himself for not seeing it immediately. Sure, his observational skills had atrophied in the years since they were his trade, but at the very least, even a Captain needed to know what was going on on his own ship. Picking up a crowbar from the wall nearby, he wedged it into the gap between two haplessly nailed together boards, prying with little effort and stepping out of the way just in time to avoid the flimsy piece of wood sent flying.

The box revealed… another box. It was rather anticlimactic, if he didn't say so himself, but Castle didn't let his guard down yet. There could still be something nasty inside this next box. In fact, the tighter it was wrapped up, the more likely – experience told him – that was to be the case.

 _Rrrrrrrrr._

His eyes snapped to Shadow again, understanding the language of his companion's ears to mean there was something the animal was very much uncertain of in that crate. He might not be able to see it, but he would certainly hear or smell it.

There was no tackling the inner box by himself.

"Yo, Esposito!" he yelled, waiting on his newest crew member, and also conveniently the one most physically matched to help open the box. "ESPO," he shouts after a beat, annoyed at the lack of response

The dark former (Castle wasn't so sure how _former_ it was, come to think of it) mercenary appeared, stupor of sleep still muddling his features.

"Captain?"

"Help me open this box," he barked, soliciting no further questions.

"What's in it?"

The Captain scowled, looking at the merc with a patronizing glare that seemed not to fetter him in the least. "If I knew, I wouldn't be busting it open, now would I?"

Esposito gave a birdlike shrug, unbothered, and grabbed another crowbar. Given the chosen and necessitated professions of those on board, such tools were in no short supply.

Together, the two men made quick work of the remaining structure on the outer crate, then dug into the second. Exchanging a last look of apprehension with his dog – who stood well back, the coarse hairs between his shoulders standing straight up in alert – Captain Castle gave a sharp jerk on his crowbar in time to Espo's.

The boarding fell away, a whole side of it at once, revealing a tidal wave of straw that looked like it could have been used for animal bedding. Animals? They'd not be shipping animals in this condition. Not unless they were, for some reason, an illegal species that had to be smuggled. The presence of another creature on board would certainly explain Shadow's reaction. Espo began clearing the straw away, revealing piece by piece the parts of what looked alarmingly like a small craft.

Castle's hand went to his hip, resting comfortingly on his pistol.

Something rattled inside the craft. Rumbling apprehensively and still on guard, Shadow moved himself in front of his master and pressed against Castle's legs. Esposito stepped back, looking as if he may run.

More straw fell away from what was presumably a door, toppling onto a figure that emerged slowly and stiffly. Drawing his gun, Castle watched as it stepped out of the shadows of the crate.

It was a woman. Young, and - despite her bedraggled appearance – the Captain couldn't help but notice, extremely attractive. Her disheveled hair was dark and cropped above her shoulders, accentuating the elegant angle of her cheekbones and making her skin, pale and unblemished, stand in moonlit contrast. She was tall, he noted as she stood to the full height of her stiltlike legs and looked around, settling squarely on his face. She was breathtaking, actually, and _oh_ , those eyes, he hardly knew what color he could use to describe them, were he still the writing sort, but they were indescribable, indescribably beautiful. She… she was probably a trap.

No, she was _definitely_ a trap. Of course. Someone sent by the long arm of the law. He musn't be put off his guard by a pretty woman. They'd always been his folly in the past, and if he wasn't careful, she would be his last folly. In the immediate future.

Raising an eyebrow in his direction with shrewd assessment, the woman rolled her shoulders, almost sneering at his gun and considering it with the amusement one would lend to a child's toy.

"Richard Castle?" she asked, and he felt his world shift under him. She knew his name. Lots of people did, naturally, but _she…_ No _. Focus, Castle,_ he chided himself. This woman was almost certainly here to kill him. Or worse, imprison him. But the way she said his name… Castle shook himself. It'd been a long time since he'd seen a woman (besides those he was related to or those who were married to his pilot and only platonically interesting, that was), true, but this was ridiculous.

He cleared his throat with as much authority as he could manage.

"Welcome aboard Serenity. You have five seconds to tell me who the hell you are and what your business on my ship is before I shoot you."

* * *

 _I said I wasn't writing for ficathon because limited time + so many other stories to write/finish. So, naturally, I'm writing for ficathon, because this plot won't leave me alone and I need something lighter to get through the darker and angstier fics._

 _Please let me know what you think!_


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, so maybe he wasn't going to shoot her. But answers. He was overdue for some of those.

"Woah woah woah," the woman surrendered, slowly raising her hands and showing him her open palms, demonstrating that she was unarmed. Unarmed didn't necessarily mean she wasn't dangerous. Still, Castle found himself redirecting his pistol to the vicinity over her shoulder. For the time being. "Please, I'm not here to cause any trouble." Too late for that. "I need sanctuary."

He swore under his breath, the syllables of Mandarin slipping off his tongue. She just _had_ to say that. Out in the black, far from the reach of the Alliance's strict policing, honor among thieves was the only thing preventing it from being a free-for-all. And even then, it only worked when everyone lived by it, which really wasn't something you wanted to bet on, or you were liable to end up stranded on an uninhabited moon with a hangover and minus some non-vital organs. It was on days like this that he regretted the fact that he did run his ship with an honor code. And convenient or not, any reasonable request for sanctuary couldn't be refused by a Captain.

Sighing deeply, he lowered his gun. "Put that away," he groused tiredly to Esposito, who defiantly held his weapon trained on the interloper's heart for a second longer. Castle locked eyes, steely bluefire to shrewd dark brown, warring wills with his hired gun and sometimes-friend. Ultimately, the trigger-happy former merc acquiesced, but his glare remained. Castle forgave him but offered no apology to undermine his own authority; a tendency toward suspicion and an automatic defensiveness of himself and the rest of the crew was a good deal of why Castle kept Espo around, but it was also a disposition that required a short rein.

Their stowaway's shoulders relaxed slightly. "Thank you," she stated with an unusual composure, for someone just threatened with the wrong end of a pistol. "I'm De-" pausing, she collected herself again, "I'm _former_ Detective Katherine Beckett, New Cardiff."

"That's fantastic," Castle sneered, "just what we need. A cop."

"You don't-" Castle's interest spiked when she stopped. A flicker of emotion marred her features, sadness mingled with fear. She sounded surprised. What had she been about to ask? "No matter. Former Detective." Emphasis on _former,_ "I'm the furthest thing from, now," she snapped bitterly. The loss of her title was fresh.

"Right," he dismissed. "Who'd you piss off?"

 _Detective_ Katherine Beckett – he didn't care what she said: once a cop, always a danger, as far as he was concerned – turned her face away, refusing to answer. Ah, so she _had_ pissed someone off. Well, at least that meant she was on the run, rather than on a mission, which was slightly encouraging. He looked her over. The angle gave him a magnificent view – the hard line of muscle running from her jaw to her neck. The gentle slope of her nose. The high elegance in the bones of her cheeks that suggested stock of the Former Solar Federation – more refined than that the average denizen of Londinium, nor anything close to Sihnon. Even filthy and scowling, she had an air of sophistication about her, but it was mixed with a lethality he had little choice but to admire.

Removed from his former life as he was, he could never quite turn off the instinct to watch people, to make observations, to pick them apart in his mind, filling in the story when none was forthcoming from the source. Woman that beautiful became a politician puppet for the Alliance or a Wife Of for some society blue blood in New Cardiff, if she came from wealth. If not, she'd be a Companion, or at best an entertainer. Certainly not Alliance police. But here she is – not charming enough to be a Companion, not half slimy enough for political life, and certainly no vapid Wife Of. Which means her story's straight. But he figured that part was real. No one with half a brain would board his ship and claim any association with Alliance police and think they'd not run a great risk of being shot on sight.

He thought for a moment it was a shame their paths had never managed to cross before, but then, she couldn't be yet thirty. He'd been long since gone by the time he'd have even given her the time of day during his days in the great city.

"Let's get you cleaned up," groused Castle at last, dismissing Esposito with a wave of his hand.

"Can I get my bag?" Beckett asked, her eyes darting back to the mess of her tiny personal shuttle. He couldn't imagine getting much more than one bag in there. Still... precautions.

"Any weapons?" she shook her head. "Any communication devices?" She glared at him, raising her eyebrow in a spiteful arch.

"Yeah, I'm on the run; I'm really going to just carry around a tracker-riddled com."

"What's in there, then?"

"Oh, I don't know. Clothing? It seems that even out here, personal hygiene is something you're acquainted with, so undoubtedly you know what that entails. A few photos. Oooh!" Beckett spat acidly, "you want to dump it out here in the cargo bay and have a look at my underwear?"

Well, actually...

"Fine," he bit out, trying not to think about the visuals her taunt provided. "I'll show you to the passenger bunks."

She fell into step quickly, not verbally responding, but the curt nod of her head was gratitude enough. She plodded dutifully behind him, Shadow taking up beside her and sniffing her hands. He didn't ever care much for the 'connectedness of all living things' bullshit (that was for the morons who chained themselves to the last trees on The Earth That Was and lost, and where were their descendants but to tell of it?) but even Castle had to admit that his dog's tacit approval of the woman buoyed his confidence. A bit.

The unnecessarily heavy thud of his steps clattered through the bay as they ascended the catwalk, making a sharp turn into the infirmary, quiet and sterile. Showing her the door to the empty passenger quarters, his mouth took off on him.

"So, bunk's through there. We don't get a ton of passengers, take the larger room. It has a bathroom attached. Shower and all. Dinner's served up in the dining hall at 18:00 hours, best be on time before the boys eat everything," he takes a breath, watching her do the same. He ought to have remembered that when he talked that way, people tended to hold their breaths with him. "I'll go now. But..." he tried his luck. In what position was she to bargain, anyway? "You are going to have to give me some answers later."

"Yeah."

He knew a dismissal when he heard it.

* * *

The moment he reached the living area, it lit up with a flurry of noise and activity. Everyone began talking all at once, blurring together into an incomprehensible slush of questions and excitement. Holding up a hand, Castle addressed part of his crew.

"We've got a passenger," he explained quietly, ignoring his daughter's interrogative expression. "Stowaway."

"Captain, in case you've forgotten, we're not in the business of charity," his pilot Ryan reminded wearily, leaning against the wall, his lanky arms folded casually. "Ow!" he exclaimed, a half-second before his paramour appeared from the back front hall.

"Kevin! Don't be mean!" Jenny admonished, "Don't forget the bind you were in when we picked you up."

Ryan shuddered. "Yes, dear," he said indulgently.

"What's her name?" asked Jenny pleasantly, turning her attention to Castle and Esposito.

"Beckett," he answered brusquely. He could feel a headache coming on. Making an executive decision, he trotted off to the ship's intercom.

"All crew, please report to the living room, I repeat, all crew members report to the living room." His smooth voice echoed through the ship, trapped and distorted by the sleek curves of the ship's walls. The shift of Serenity raking into cruising mode precipitated the arrival of the other part-time pilot and navigator, and quickly thereafter, the resident medic appeared at the door, presumably from her quarters.

"Captain?" Lanie reported, her assessment of the situation as not being dire making her more curious than alarmed. Their navigator hung back, content to watch from a distance in his reserved way.

"Good, everybody's here," Castle began pleasantly, his hand curling around his daughter's to reassure her. "We've got a passenger. Former Alliance, sounds like. She's not talking much, but she's invoked sanctuary." He took inventory of his crew's reactions – Lanie, Ryan, Jenny all neutral; Alexis intrigued; Esposito still wary; but most notably, his normally jovial navigator saying nothing and looking for the exits. He filed it away for later examination. "She's not an immediate threat, far as I can see. On the run from something. She thought that we could help."

Esposito snorted.

"Still say you should'a thrown her out the airlock. She's trouble," Esposito pitched in. Castle rolled his eyes. The man talked a tough game, but he was mostly hot air.

"Fine, Javi," Ryan challenged his friend, "go down there and throw her out yourself."

Esposito didn't move. Castle continued as if he'd heard nothing.

"I told her what time to come up for dinner. Until then, I think we'd best leave her to her own devices. We'll figure out what to do about her later."

He could tell there were questions burning in the minds of his family and friends, but to their credit, they followed orders. The hush of unsatisfied curiosity hung for a while, but gradually replaced itself with the hum of activity as dinner preparations began. Chatter of the stowaway mingled with more pressing interest in the fresh produce they'd managed to scrape for on Paquin.

Slipping a box he'd acquired especially for her to Alexis, Castle grounded himself in the contentment of her appreciative hug, a smile pulling the corners of his mouth when she swung her arms around his neck. Settling in at the booth once she'd stolen away – presumably to the solitude of the engine room – to enjoy her present, he tried to relax. But the day wasn't yet over, and it'd already seemed longer than day on a cold moon. Hovering on the edge of the hive of activity, he noticed his navigator looking far off. Worried, even. The man was a kind of bellwether – he had a way of feeling around things, a way borne of a colorful life spent wandering the verse and surviving her perils. Their mysterious detective notwithstanding, he was the newest member of the crew, but Castle trusted his counsel implicitly. Something was troubling him, but if it were pressing, he'd volunteer it.

Shrugging it off and electing to keep his thoughts to himself until he'd had a good meal and a word with Beckett after, he busied himself with a book, letting his troubles rest until supper.

* * *

 _To clarify, this is not a true crossover fic, hence it is not marked as a crossover. It's all Castle – just in the Firefly 'verse._

 _This story will go up in rating, eventually. Anyone not willing or allowed to read M+ should not get invested. Also, chapters should come 1-3x per week, depending on time/internet access, as they're shorter and lighter than what I typically write!_

 _Thank you all for the support on this adventure._


	3. Chapter 3

Two weeks of running on empty caught up with her in a hell of a hurry when she stripped her tattered clothes away and stepped into the tepid spray of water. For the second time in just over a decade, Kate Beckett's world had turned on its head overnight; her path drastically and irrevocably changed, her entire structure yanked out from under her.

She was moving quickly through the ranks in the Capitol's elite force. Pursuing justice, keeping her head afloat, and learning to play in the ranks of the Alliance. Well, none of that mattered now. She'd come home to her apartment with a green X painted across the door and felt the cold dread of recognition – of being marked as a traitor to the Alliance, of being marked for death, due process be damned. The interior space was a predictable, ransacked mess. It was a small comfort, she'd noted on sight of her desk, that they had not found what they were looking for. But she'd had no time to contemplate that or congratulate herself before a shot fired through her window, missing her head by mere inches.

She tried to look at the positives.

Positive: she hadn't been shot at since. Positive: regardless of her job and title, her real work was safe and untouchable. Positive: being sacked and shot at was confirmation enough that she was at the very least on a trail that was making somebody very, very nervous. Positive: it appeared there was honor among thieves after all, though the ironies of her finding sanctuary with them was not at all lost on her. Positive: what she'd always heard and imagined of the self-styled Captain seemed more or less true… though he was significantly less cheerful than she'd last seen of him.

But then, he'd had ten years of this way of life. She'd had less than a fortnight and it had already taken a toll. It was hardly fair to hold him to the same expectation of the personality he could afford to keep during his old life.

Currying away the grime built up during the better part of a day spent in a shuttle, in a crate, Kate's eyes felt impossibly heavy, her limbs as if they were filled with cold lead. She was tired. So tired. The rush of her success at shipping herself onto the craft of whispered legend swirled down the drain with two days worth of dirt. She thought she'd feel more exhilarated, defiant, maybe even happy.

Instead, she just felt numb. A message coded into a letter had told her to seek 'inner serenity' if she ever found herself in need, and she thought – well, Captain Castle's reaction to a _cop_ on board said she was likely wrong. He clearly hadn't been expecting her. She didn't particularly wish to think about what that meant for the fate of her last remaining friend in the 'verse.

Drying her hair on autopilot, she contemplated her next step. If these people couldn't (or wouldn't) help her, if she'd misread her signals and she was just a passenger here to be dumped and left to the Alliance at the next stop, what would she do? How would she survive?

It was a question she felt uncomfortably incompetent to answer. Never in her life had she been prepared for anything other than life on the central planets. Even working a decidedly less glamorous job than she perhaps could have had, her life was comfortable. She'd had friends - or what she thought were friends; three guesses as to who painted that green X on her door - and a challenging but rewarding job. Her life was well provided for. Full of ready answers for any question she might have, she'd thought, even if they required a little digging.

Which, incidentally, was exactly what got her here in the first place.

Kate tucked a towel around her waist and sat on her bunk, staring out the tiny window and into the black and thinking of nothing at all.

* * *

A sharp rasp at the door woke her with a start, and she discovered that she was laid out on her bunk. Still nude. Disoriented, she tried quickly to remember where she'd put her bag.

"Uh…" she called out when the knocking continued, "just a moment…"

She seized the first thing she found in her bag; a pair of linen pants, a light top. Wobbling a little under the heavy boulder of exhaustion, she remembered. Shoes. There weren't any shoes here. All she had were her boots. Her feet still screamed from days of confinement. Not to mention the boots probably needed a good airing. Why hadn't she packed shoes?

"Coming!" she yelled at the door. The knocking ceased, but she sensed the presence outside. Frozen in place, she scrambled around the bottom of her bag, hopelessly searching for even a pair of sandals and despising the humiliating prickle of tears forming at the corner of her eyes. She refused to cry. Not over this. She'd lost her home, her job, her friends, her planet, her _life,_ and not cried. She sure as hell wouldn't do over a lack of footwear. And yet…

"Miss Beckett?" a smooth, deep voice called in. "Are you alright?"

Electric recognition sparked through her and she abandoned her quest for shoes at once. The door flew open with a force, clattering noisily against the wall. Kate heard none of it as she flung herself into the arms of her old friend.

"Captain!" there was a comfort in his familiar smell, spice brandy and wood, that persisted even here.

"Just Roy now, Beckett," he corrected. Their common loss passed unremarked upon between them, but tacitly acknowledged just the same. "Wasn't sure you got my message."

Beckett snorted. "I wasn't, either. It was just luck that I saw the... Captain," it sounded strange to her, "on Paquin. I followed him back to the ship and, well, took a chance."

"He's a good man," Montgomery – she still couldn't find it in her to call him Roy – answered her unasked question, "he's just trying to survive out here too."

Beckett nodded, entirely unbothered by Castle one way or the next. He hadn't had her thrown out the airlock. That was well enough, even if he was significantly less pleasant than she once imagined (she would not let herself use the word _daydreamed_ ). But if he had Roy Montgomery's seal of approval, and he's who her old mentor chose to trust, she supposed she could reserve judgment. It must have been a shock to find a stowaway, after all.

 _Hem._

She looked up into Montgomery's expectant eyes and realized he was waiting for a reaction, a question – anything, probably, besides her standing there and staring – literally – off into space.

"Ca- Roy-" all wrong, "is... where're Evelyn and the kids?"

At that, a wistful smile tugged at his lips.

"Safe, all safe," he reassured her, and she relaxed fractionally. "I couldn't say in our letters. You know they were being monitored."

Well. She did now. She'd thought his paranoia unjust when he resigned and abruptly left New Cardiff, but now, she thought, he may not have been paranoid _enough,_ given what happened to her. How much of her life had been betrayed by her bosses? How much had Montgomery's? She'd been so very, very misguided in her trust.

"I'm sorry," Kate toed at the floor.

"Not at all, Beckett," Montgomery dismissed. "Just glad you're safe."

There was a lull, a natural pause in which the older man began to walk. He knew where he was going, he always did, and she fell into step naturally beside him, strolling casually through the warren of the ship.

"You must be hungry," remarked Montgomery conversationally. She hadn't particularly thought about it before her shower and rest – hygiene and staving off a nervous breakdown took precedence – but her stomach chose that moment to answer for her. Loudly.

"Take that as a yes," he responded, chuckling lowly at her habitual elbow to his ribs. "Everyone already ate, but we saved a bit of everything. Captain's orders."

Montgomery's hand, dry and weathered and warm, closed around hers, helping her up a step she'd have tripped over without the warning, up and into the ship's common area. A din of happy conversation surrounded her, and for a moment, she felt almost as if she was back in the bullpen of the homicide division in the city.

Everyone shut up at the same time, turning one by one away from their card games and conversation to stare.

"Hullo," she said awkwardly. Radio silence and outright stares – some less hostile and more curious than others – met her from the other end.

"This is Kate Beckett," Montgomery intervened, leveling the crew with an authoritative look, "she's a friend. I told her to find us if she needed help."

Captain Castle stood from his perch at one of the two booths in the common area.

"You told her to come find _my ship?"_ he probed, sidling towards them, putting the breadth of his body between them and the rest of the crew with a stiffness that belied his impressively pleasant expression, given the circumstances.

"You didn't tell him?" Kate hissed, turning to Montgomery, who looked rather uncomfortable. Just how much _hadn't_ he told them?

"Something you want to share with the class, Roy?" a slight, fair man piped up from where he hung at the back of the group.

Montgomery sighed heavily, ignoring the tense posture of those around him and sitting down casually. "Well, Miss Beckett here hasn't been shot yet, so I guess that's good news for me," he paused, glancing the room to assure he had his audience before motioning for everyone to sit and lower their guards, in the same way he always had with her and her partners in the city. It was strangely comforting that, despite their obvious reservations, the rest of the crew complied instantly.

"Now, I'll need Beckett's input on what's happened since I left, but this whole mess started a few years ago, when I was a New Cardiff Captain for the Alliance -" he paused for the collective shift in the small crowd, and Kate noticed several hands reaching for the comfort of phantom weapons, "- and a case in the Homicide division started to make someone in high places very, very nervous."

 _You'll never touch him._

"We never figured that catching a murderer would only be the beginning of all our problems."

* * *

 _Internet access is touch and go right now and might be over the next couple of weeks. My apologies for the slow responses and spotty updates._

 _Thank you to all readers & reviewers, particularly for putting up with my lack of consistency._


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